Samuel Beckett, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates

Leonard Madden (Independent Scholar - Europe)

Ed. by Anne Markey, Dublin City University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1935

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates, Beckett’s first collection of poetry, was published by Europa Press in Paris in 1935. The title alludes to Book III of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which are described the two degenerative transformations of the nymph Echo (359-510). In the first, Juno curtails Echo’s vocal agency so that she is unable either to initiate speech or to remain silent. In the second, as a result of her obsession with, and rejection by, Narcissus, her body wastes so that “only her voice and bones were left, till finally her voice alone remained; for her bones, they say, were turned to stone” (399; Innes trans. 84). Consequently, the “Other” in the title of Beckett’s collection places emphasis …

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3717 words

Citation: Madden, Leonard. "Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 July 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34651, accessed 24 April 2024.]

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